{"id":695044,"date":"2019-10-02T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-02T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thomrainer.com\/?p=695044"},"modified":"2020-02-07T12:17:20","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T18:17:20","slug":"five-documents-that-say-something-about-your-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/five-documents-that-say-something-about-your-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Documents That Say Something About Your Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By: Chuck Lawless<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We can learn a lot about a church by reviewing its written documents. I encourage you to evaluate your own congregation based on these documents.<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. By-laws. <\/strong>The by-laws of a church typically speak to day-to-day operations and are often more easily changed than a church\u2019s constitution. Quite often, by-law amendments such as these examples tell us something about the church\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Any former member who re-joins ___________ Church may not vote in a business meeting and may not serve in a leadership role for a minimum of six months after joining the church.<\/li>\n<li>Worship services at ____________ Church may take place only on Sunday.<\/li>\n<li>Persons who serve as administrative assistants at __________ Church may <em>not <\/em>be members of the church at the same time.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Whether or not you agree with these by-law amendments, what do you suppose had happened in the history of these congregations?<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. Calendar<\/strong>. A church\u2019s calendar gives some indication of a congregation\u2019s priorities. Take a look at your church\u2019s calendar, and consider these questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What percentage of activities focuses only on meeting the needs of church members?<\/li>\n<li>What percentage is <em>intentionally and clearly<\/em> directed toward reaching unbelievers and unchurched folks in the community?<\/li>\n<li>If members were to attend everything offered (or even a particular percentage of the events), would they have time to focus on raising families and reaching friends and neighbors?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>3. Budget<\/strong>. Likewise, a church\u2019s budget illustrates what the congregation believes to be most significant. Consider the church that has devoted 55% of its budget to personnel and 30% to debt retirement. Few funds are left for ministry programs and missions support. It\u2019s possible the church is simply inwardly focused, unconcerned about budgeting to reach others. Among other possibilities, it\u2019s also possible the church has experienced attendance and giving decline without making necessary staff changes.<\/p>\n<p>Based only on a review of your church\u2019s budget, what are your congregation\u2019s priorities?<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Prayer list<\/strong>. I am convinced churches lack power because they operate in their own strength. At the same time, I fear that too many prayer lists reflect an inward focus. With that concern in mind, think about these questions as you look at your church\u2019s prayer list:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How much does the church pray for church members? for unbelievers? for professed believers not currently attending church?<\/li>\n<li>How strong is the focus on praying for the church members to be evangelistic (Eph. 6:18-20)?<\/li>\n<li>Does the church pray consistently for missionaries (or only when you hear of missionaries who face difficulties)?<\/li>\n<li>Do you pray for sister congregations in the community?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>5. Attendance records<\/strong>.\u00a0 Many churches don\u2019t keep this information, but this data can be informative. Consider these questions you might ask, among others:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Is the church growing numerically? If so, is the church growing through reaching non-believers? by members of other churches transferring their membership to your church?<\/li>\n<li>Is your church\u2019s back door wide open \u2013 that is, are more people leaving your church than joining?<\/li>\n<li>What percentage of your church\u2019s worship attenders are also involved in a small group? in doing ministry? in giving?<\/li>\n<li>On average, how many guests attend your church every week? What percentage returns for subsequent visits? What percentage joins the church?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>These documents are only a few among many in most churches. They\u2019re just pieces of the puzzle in evaluating the health of a church. What other documents would you add to this list?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We can learn a lot about a church by reviewing its written documents.","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":695022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[193,1,177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-695044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administration-and-finance","category-church-answers","category-lead"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What These Five Documents Say About Your Church - Thomrainer.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Oct. 2, 2019 - We can learn a lot about a church by its written documents. I encourage you to evaluate your own church by reveiweng these five documents.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/five-documents-that-say-something-about-your-church\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What These Five Documents Say About Your Church - Thomrainer.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oct. 2, 2019 - We can learn a lot about a church by its written documents. 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